summer camp

summer camp, any combined recreational and educational facility designed to acquaint urban children with outdoor life. The earliest camps were started in the United States about 1885 when reaction to increased urbanization led to various back-to-nature movements. These attempts at rediscovering the outdoors, plus long summer vacations, led to the development of summer camps, which were at first exclusively for boys. Camps for girls date from about 1900, and since that time coeducational camps have developed as well.

The periods of summer camps vary from one or two weeks to about eight weeks, and the children in attendance range in age from about 6 to 18 years. Since the earliest camps that stressed masculine fraternity and the simple life, many different types have developed with a wide variety of emphases, from so-called wilderness camps, where children live in tents and cook their own food, to camps with heated cabins, hot showers, swimming pools, and an elaborate cuisine. Some camps offer only the land and water sports peculiar to their locale plus some arts-and-crafts activities; others may be directed toward furthering a natural talent or a special interest. There are, for example, art and music camps and others devoted to baseball, horseback riding, tennis, and sailing. There are also remedial camps for children having difficulty in school and others dedicated to such goals as weight reduction.